Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will first respond to the Chairman's questions. She raised the question of rent supplement and the need for the tenant to seek advice on renegotiating the rent. We hope to make a major shift so that this service goes to local authorities, which after all have housing departments. The housing assistance payment, as the system is developed, should be able to address the issues that Deputies O'Dea, Ó Snodaigh and the Chairman raised. The community welfare officers have transferred from the HSE and are now part of the community welfare service in the Department of Social Protection. They are not necessarily expert in dealing with housing need and the setting of rent, whereas this has been part of the responsibility of the housing section of the local authorities. We must bring the different systems together. I am happy that we have made progress. I share Deputy O'Dea's concerns on the way some tenants, or people associated with them who are not declared, may cause great difficulties.

I will be able to provide the Chairman with data on the people who avail of free travel. At present, in approximate figures, about 745,500 social welfare recipients get free travel. This includes pensioners, people with a disability and carers. Some 85,700 persons have companion passes and another 361,200 are spouses of recipients, making a total of 1.1 million people who receive a free travel pass. The Chairman is correct in saying that the overall cost of the scheme was capped at €77 million by our predecessors in Government some years ago, simply because the numbers, and the number who were not pensioners, was rising significantly. I will provide the committee with these figures. It may be worthwhile for it to consider them more closely. The operators have raised issues on the schemes and have a number of queries. There is an inter-departmental group comprising the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Social Protection and the representatives of the National Transport Authority and so on dealing with it. There is a concern about some level of abuse, such as forged passes being used. People may have seen reports in the newspapers on an exercise that officials in the Department together with the operators of the trams carried out in Dublin. We have set up a hotline for transport operators, so that if inspectors who are checking tickets and passes believe the transport pass may be improperly used they can telephone and check the person has a valid pass number that is duly authorised. We started this a couple of months ago, so I do not have full outcomes. I will be happy to come back to the joint committee to discuss this when we have more detailed information in the Department. I know that Dublin Bus as well as other operators are concerned.

For the past ten to 15 years we have been speaking about changing the system in the Department so that a person is issued with a personal services card which has photo ID. This is a huge piece of work. We have started to implement it this year with the change to pathways and the introduction of the personal services card. In fairness to the staff, there are major ongoing changes, such as upgrading IT and changing to new systems. Unfortunately it takes time. I do not think there are any fraud problems with pensioners because everybody over 66 years is entitled to the free bus pass. I have never heard a suggestion of a problem with that scheme. The problem may lie with some of the other categories, for example younger people who may have counterparts who are entitled to free travel and they are enabled to use it. There are 99,000 on disability allowance who have a free travel pass. Many of them would be quite young. There is a problem. The operators have raised it as a problem.

The bulk of the allocation of €77 million goes to CIE as a subvention. Another amount goes to rural and community bus developments. Senator Marie Moloney would be very familiar with its operation in County Kerry. Some goes to private bus operators but they have raised their issues with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

Perhaps this may be an issue the joint committee might return to when I am able to give the secretariat a more detailed briefing. I share the Chairman's appreciation of the value of free travel for people, particularly pensioners. I spoke to a medical consultant in the area of caring for older people and I was told of the tremendous value of encouraging people to travel around. Senator Moloney can tell us of the value to the local economy of the golden years pensioners who travel to Killarney for a short break. It has very important social consequences and benefits for people individually and also it helps pensioners to travel around and see the country. That has an impact on tourism and leisure. I am very conscious of the value that older people and people with mobility issues derive from their free travel pass.

The spend in 2011 on rent supplement was €503 million. The estimate for this year is €436 million. Some people have had difficulties but the individual community welfare services are dealing with people on a one-to-one basis. New rents are being negotiated yearly or every couple of years. The estimated savings to the Department are about €67 million. In the context of the budget, achieving these savings is important. I will revert to Deputy O'Dea on his questions relating to identification. As I said, the new powers for inspectors should be of assistance. We might talk more about that.

In response to Senator Healy Eames, the increase in the deficit of the social insurance fund does not affect spending. The Government commits to a programme of spending on social welfare of €20.5 billion. Some of that spending, that is contributory old age pension, job seeker's benefit and so on is funded out of the social insurance fund but the Government has committed to that spending. If there is a shortage on the fund, the deficit is made up out of general taxation.

Deputy Ó Snodaigh also referred to this issue. The Government adopts an estimate for the year and where the social insurance fund falls short or the deficit is larger than predicted general taxation is used to make up the shortfall. This is currently the case in the period since estimates were done with the International Monetary Fund in September 2010 and confirmed in November, the number of people on the live register has increased by 40,000 more than anticipated. The good news is that the social insurance fund will balance itself as people return to work in a number of years but if we continue to have high levels of unemployment we will need to ensure the fund is resourced.

Members should also note in respect of the social insurance fund that the health levy-----